Paula herself would die following a long festering illness when she was only 56, meaning that she was spared having to live through the nightmare of the Hitler Holocaust which drove at least two of her siblings to relocate to California.

[6] Although relatively little information is available concerning Paula's own childhood, it is known that she was a pupil at the "Luisenschule", the first secondary school for girls in Berlin (which had been initially founded on a different site as far back as 1838).

Richard and Paula Dehmel led an intensely sociable existence at this time: barely a day went by without guests arriving at the house.

[2][10] During or around August 1892 Richard Dehmel fell in love with Paula's friend, the poet-translator Hedwig Lachmann, suggesting that they should all get together and live as a "threesome".

In an age before readers could turn their attention to electronic media, Richard Dehmel was beginning to emerge as a celebrity poet, and he continued to hanker after a commensurate lifestyle.

At the same time, in the context of the education reforms underway around 1900, there was a renewed demand for poetry and literature tailored to the needs of children and young people, which prompted Richard Dehmel in particular, as early as 1895, to try and produce for publication poems for family reading and short stories suitable for youthfully short attention spans, which appeared in a new generation of literary journals targeting the children of the "educated middle classes" and their parents.

[10][16][17] It was only after her separation from Richard in 1899 that it became possible for Paula to arrange for the inclusion of Fitzebutze, a children's book which the couple had planned together, in the publication schedule of their Berlin publishers, Insel Verlag.

[18][a] In a letter Paula wrote to Richard in September 1900 she pointed out that her name had not even been mentioned in the publicity material produced by Insel Verlag ahead of the book launch for Fitzebutze, meaning that when the book actually appeared in the shops, buyers would be likely to assume, incorrectly, that she had "wished to steal into the literary firmament hidden in the coat tails of her famous husband".

[20][c] Maybe this was intended as a hint: either way, Paula Dehmel responded promptly to her husband's shared observation, agreeing at once to a divorce and within a couple of weeks setting in motion the necessary legal steps.

[21] In November 1900, when Fitzebutze was duly published by Insel Verlag through Schuster & Loeffler, authorship was jointly credited to Paula and Richard Dehmel.

When he nevertheless supplied a vast storm of "suggestions" and "corrections" to these manuscripts, she respectfully resisted what seems to have amounted to a set of comprehensive re-writes from her former husband: "You must learn to accept my modest artistic efforts as they are.

[30][31] Paula Dehmel continued to build her reputation with critics and book buyers, writing song lyrics, stories and tales for children.

Just how much more she achieves in this all-embracing and not to be under-estimated child-art, both pedagogically and as a literary playmate, becomes apparent from "Rumpumpel", recently published and which she produced independently, and from "Buntscheck", in which she signs her contributions with her own name ...[especially when compared with the so-called "joint project" represented by "Fitzebutze"].

[34][35] A compilation of tales, Das grüne Haus, appeared in 1907, followed in 1912 by Auf der bunten Wiese" ("On the colourful meadow"), a book of children's poems which seems to have impressed even her ex-husband when she sent him the manuscript for comments.

At around this time she was also working on translations into German of John Habberton's Helen's Babies and Other People's Children, which were published in 1913 by Josef Singer Verlag.

Meidingers Jugendschriften Verlag, the publishers for whom she worked, were forced to make savings and Paula Dehmel found that she had to pay any fees arising for contributions from fellow authors out of her own pocket.

She received his "proposals" for changes to the manuscript for her forthcoming book, Singinens Geschichte (which, as matters turned out, would be published posthumously) gratefully, and with no obvious indications of dissent.

Numerous volumes including works by Paula Dehmel, especially in respect of the poems she wrote for infants and small children, have continued to appear ever since.